My First Two Days

Hi Again,


The last two full days in the Mara have been spectacular. Yesterday I was introduced to the Koiyaki Guiding School (KGS) students. These are the students I will be working with as well as living in the same area as. They are all older students and are here to learn how to become guides for tourism. I will be primarily teaching computer skills and helping fix their resource room. The resource room is similar to a natural history museum once we are finished with it. Currently it is more of an empty shell. There are bones of the major animals found within the conservancy, cultural artifacts of the Masai people, bugs that have been dried for display and native plants that have been identified and dried. I hope to do a lot of work on this room and have it completed by the time I leave here.

After I came up with some ideas for the room, I had to talk to the head master of the school, Michael to get the ok to start buying supplies to complete the room. He very much liked the ideas so at lunch Gabriel and I headed into Talek to order paint and plastics and all the hardware we will need. Talek is a small town that is ~ 30 minutes away from the school. When we got there we heard there was a music festival that had all the local school competing. Singing is a large part of the culture here and when we arrived all the local schools greeted us. All the children wore tradition Masai clothing and each school had a different costume. Hearing the children sing and watch their traditions was beyond words. I have a video but like always I am having technological problems so I hope to be able to post that soon. After ordering supplies and seeing the children sing we headed back to the school so we could prepare for our lion monitoring.

Lion monitoring occurs twice a week and we go in late afternoon and come home around 8 pm. Lions are nocturnal so we go at dusk when they are getting ready to hunt. After two hours of roaming the conservancy, we finally came across 13 males. They were all under a year old. We could tell because they still had their spots. They honestly did not mind the car however to be within 6’ of a lion in the wild is crazy. There are lots of pictures, don’t worry. On our way home, we also saw hippos as we crossed the river to go back into the school. You may think that being within feet of a lion is the extremely dangerous, it is the hippos that you need to worry about. They kill more individuals per year that lions.

We arrived home late and were happy to find a dinner of fried fish, vegetables, potatoes and fruit. It was great food and at 9:30 while we all sat at the table the power went out which announced the end of our day whether we liked it or not. However, 30 minutes later the hyenas came into the area and I could hear them chewing a plastic bucket outside my window. Always a relaxing noise to fall asleep to.

This morning, I woke up at 6:50 and prepared for computer lessons. Today, I taught Betty our manager how to use excel. While I am no expert, I know enough to make a big impact. We had computer lessons for two hours then had a break for lunch, pasta with corn and tomatoes. I also was given my first lessons in Swahili and Masai during lunch. The language is very different but I have the best tutors in the world here so hopefully overt the next 6 weeks I will be able to get by a little better.

After lunch we headed to a town an hour and 15 minutes away to hold a women’s group. However, when we got there we were told that all the women in the village had gone to a church service one the other side of the valley so they were not coming. Instead, we went to the local primary school to meet the children. It was amazing! If you have a camera, you are these kids new best friend. They do not see themselves in mirrors often so they love for us to take pictures of them then show them. We met every grade level that was there 1-8th grade and introduced ourselves. I was liked because of Obama. However, none of them could say my name. They always just laughed and looked around at one another because none of them knew how to say it. We also helped unload a truck of corn and peas that was delivered by the USDA. Before we left, our guide, Sarah, showed us the schools well. This well is the only source of water for 5 km. Women walk here daily with 5-gallon jugs to get their family water. As I watched the women fill their jugs and load them into ropes that would them be carried across their forehead to carry home I was so thankful for my abundant water supply at home. TIA.

Now, we are home for the night. The students are playing volleyball on the other end of the school grounds and I think I will join them for a game or two before dinner. I hope to keep you as up to day as possible on this trip. I hope everyone is doing fine at home.